


ars

by talonyth



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, kageyama eats when he has problems, oikawa just wants to drink coffee in peace, suga is very forward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 12:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6239248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talonyth/pseuds/talonyth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kageyama hits an art block and can't find the way out - until he meets Suga.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ars

**Author's Note:**

> alright, here we go! i was in love with this prompt the second i saw it and i had to take the chance to write it. 
> 
> dear [sam](http://mephalasturm.tumblr.com/), i had a lot of fun working on this and i hope you will enjoy it just as much!

Kageyama squints at the blank page, pencil hovering over it without touching it in the slightest. He’s hardly ever felt as uncertain, hands always moving by themselves but lately it feels like he is stuck in a rut about what to draw. Or how to draw. As if he’s forgotten how to do it entirely. This hasn’t happened before, never this badly at least. He lets out a long sigh and leans back into his chair. 

He has never doubted that this was what he wanted to do. As single-minded as it seemed to everyone else but in his entire life there had been nothing that accompanied him through good and bad times as much as art had. In all forms and varieties although he found painting to come the most natural to him. Even if he was clumsy in everything else he did, art had been something he could reassure himself with. 

Until now. Before the blank canvas imprints in his mind, Kageyama stands up, stuffs his things into his bag and leaves the room. Perhaps he is just hungry. Perhaps it’s just that easy. 

\---

When after a whole week he can’t bring anything down the canvas, let alone his sketchbook, Kageyama ruffles his hair in utter frustration and kicks down the easel. His parents had been kind enough to indulge him and grant him the opportunity of an isolated and quiet room rented in the outskirts of the city in addition to the small apartment closer to the city’s center. It takes him a while to reach but it always served well for both recreation and concentration. 

The worst is that Kageyama can’t pinpoint what might have caused this. Things have gone as always, he’s been doing his work and then one day, he simply stopped being able to. What if he’d never recover? ...Nonsense. There is no way that could happen. But if it did, what would he do? 

He stares at the canvas spread out on the floor and his stomach grumbles. This isn’t hunger keeping him but he decides to follow that call regardless. Working when hungry is just making things worse. 

\-- 

Kageyama doesn’t have many friends. In fact, he isn’t sure if any of the persons in his surroundings could be considered a friend and Oikawa is the one at the very bottom of the list. Regardless, he finds there is no one who drives him into a better direction than him - albeit in very weird ways Kageyama will never understand. 

“You should really look for someone else to pester, Tobio-chan,” is his response to Kageyama’s genuine request for help. It’s been two weeks now and his canvas is still resting on the floor as he left it the last time. “How am I supposed to help you with an art block? Are you aware I don’t even _want_ to help you?”

“But you’re still talking to me?” It’s a small café, not much to Kageyama’s liking but he remembers Oikawa going to this place every now and then. They have good pastries but seeing as he isn’t a big fan of coffee, Kageyama has never bothered dropping by too often.

Oikawa stares at him - glares, in fact. “You sat down at my table. And I haven’t finished my coffee yet. How am I supposed to leave? ...You don’t get it, do you?”

Kageyama stays quiet. He doesn’t, not at all, what Oikawa’s point is beside the fact that he might not have paid what he’s consuming right now. “Will you help me, then? You still have a bit of time, right?”

“How much of a brickhead are you?” Oikawa sighs and leans back into his chair, pushing his glasses up. And pointedly letting out another sigh. “There is nothing I can help you with. If you’re having a block, you have to look for a way around it.”

“But nothing works.”

“Just because you cling onto your methods too much. I know you work by yourself in your small little room where no one else can see or enter. Ever thought about changing that?”

“No,” Kageyama says, without falter. Why should he when it worked so far just fine?

Oikawa takes the last sip from his coffee and stands up, throwing his bag over his shoulder. “There you have your problem. I’ll hopefully not see you around again, Tobio-chan. Bye bye.” Oikawa turns around and struts to the cashier to pay and opting for another pastry for the way before leaving the café for good. 

So he needs to change the way he works? But how? He’s never done that before. 

By the time he is back in the atelier, he does put up the easel back in its usual spot, smoothes over the surface of the canvas before deciding to call it a day. It’s no use trying to work - and he finds this is the first time he has ever thought that. 

He goes back to the café. Oikawa isn’t there but the pastries are still good enough for Kageyama to stay. They still the hunger and they are a little different from what he usually eats. 

\---

“Are you Kageyama, by any chance?” 

Kageyama musters the stranger sitting opposite of him. He definitely doesn’t know him but the other seems to. There is something refreshing about him. “Yeah,” he eventually replies, eyes back on the piece of pie he ordered. 

He hasn’t been much of a sweet tooth in the past and he can’t say he became one in the last month he spent without drawing a single piece of work. But he finds himself coming back to this place regardless as if it holds an answer that will reveal itself eventually. 

“Oh, good. My name is Sugawara Koushi. Most people call me Suga, though. You’re an artist, aren’t you?”

Sugawara’s smile doesn’t cease and even though Kageyama has been taught not to trust strangers, he feels weirdly taken in by that person sitting opposite of him. It’s a lot less unsettling than it should be. “...Yes?”

Sugawara chuckles and it sounds oddly pleasant. His voice does, too. “I’m sorry, this must seem so weird to you. I just noticed the bag you’re carrying is pretty big. The type the art students around here use a lot, so I thought you might be the same.”

“Ah. Yeah. Though I’m not a student anymore.” He eats the last piece of pie and leans back, meeting Sugawara’s eyes. They are warm. It feels nice looking at him. 

“Oh. I see. Graduated when?”

“Last year.”

“Are you a freelancer?”

“Something like that. It seems like I caught the attention of a few people who regularly request my works.”

“You don’t sound all too happy about it.”

Kageyama shrugs. “I can make a living out of it. It’s good. People kept telling me it would be hard to do that with what I like to do. It’s not really, though. If you work hard enough, then it’s not.”

“So everyone who fails just doesn’t try hard enough?” 

There is something in Sugawara’s expression that shifted throughout their conversation, something Kageyama hasn’t noticed until now. He can’t categorize it. The smile is still there but it doesn’t give off the same feeling anymore. He finds he can’t look Sugawara in the eyes anymore. 

He has seen a lot of people give the minimum instead of their best, complaining about how they had a hard time. But isn’t it natural they would fail if they don’t give everything they have? Calling him names when all they did was slack off was hardly going to bring them as far as he is now. 

“Are you happy?”

Kageyama looks up, puzzled as to what this had to do with anything at all. “What?”

“I’m just,” Sugawara gestures for a lack of words, probably, and sighs, “I’m just wondering whether this is fun? Right now? You said you like doing this. Art?”

“Yeah. I do. It’s my life.”

“I’ve never seen you draw before. I’m here a lot, actually, but I’ve never seen you draw once.” 

Kageyama opens his mouth and closes it again, lowering his head without being able to retort anything at all. His stomach is full, his sugar levels are high but he still feels unsatisfied. He thinks of that canvas, back in the atelier, left completely blank for weeks and looks up to this person wondering how they would look painted. 

\---

“Not fair! Ever since we started talking, you’ve been drawing again but you won’t show me?” Sugawara pouts and crosses his arms, feigning to be upset. He’s a lot more childish than Kageyama expected him to be, a lot more devious and a lot more of a potty mouth. Sugawara isn’t much what his appearance suggests. Kageyama’s fingers fidget, eager to get his pen out. 

There is no logical reason why Kageyama doesn’t show Sugawara his sketchbook. He’s never been shy to do so, always certain that his art would be as good as it could get. But this, it feels different this time. Sugawara can see through him just fine without it already. 

“Have you at least managed to work on that request,” he eventually asks when Kageyama gives him no response to his complaint. 

“Not really,” Kageyama replies. He tried to but all he brought onto that canvas ultimately ended up looking like Sugawara. He’s never been prone to drawing human models, portraits or any of the like. And now he can’t stop himself from doing exactly that. How weird. Perhaps he could… use that for his advantage. His client didn’t give him very strict instructions on what to paint in the first place. 

“Sugawara-san, could I ask a favour of you?”

It’s a spur of the moment thing, a spark, a speck of inspiration that has Kageyama feeling aflame all of the sudden. He knows how he would like it to look now, knows it could be perfect and meet the client’s conditions too. 

“Sure, what is it?”

It’s a new sort of expression he sees on Sugawara’s face when he asks, “Would you allow me to draw you?” 

Maybe he should show him his sketchbook after all. 

\---

It’s a simple sitting position, feet crossed leisurely, fingers laced, posture calm. Kageyama didn’t direct Sugawara to sit like that. Just to sit how it would be the most comfortable for him to stay without moving too much. 

At first, Kageyama thought it would feel weirder to have someone step into his atelier. No one did, before Suga. He didn’t even bring his clients in. They didn’t need to see failed attempts and broken canvases laying around. In hindsight, ever since he met Suga, perhaps things hadn’t been working out as well as Kageyama made himself believe they did.

It doesn’t matter now when Kageyama can’t lift the brush off the canvas anymore, back to how he used to feel - or no, in fact this feels better. It’s the same kind of zone, an absolute sort of concentration he doesn’t lose no matter what. There are no other thoughts in his mind, no other pictures nor sounds either - except this time, there is. 

The sound of Sugawara’s voice reverberates in his mind, all the useless and small conversations they had over the past month. It had never been anything overly important but Kageyama finds he memorized all of them. 

His expressions, Kageyama took great care of remembering them. Whether Sugawara was upset or happy or curious, all of those, Kageyama can tell by now. Mostly, at least. He still sees a few new ones every now and then. 

It’s become increasingly harder for Kageyama not to pay attention to how soft the features of Sugawara’s face are. How well-formed the curve of his neck or his jawline. How long his fingers. How warm his eyes. How the mole under his left eye is the most prominent on his face but how there is another on his left earlobe as well that Kageyama can’t help focusing on when Sugawara brushes his hair behind his ear. Which is often. 

“Are you alright?”

Kageyama flinches at the sudden voice calling from the back of the room, realizing he lowered his brush and stopped moving altogether. He nods hurriedly, breath heavier than before. Like he kept it in without noticing and letting it all out when hearing Sugawara call. He sits still in the same position as before, expression slightly different but he quickly goes back into that. 

“Sugawara-san, have you done this before?”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk,” he says, tone light with a snicker following.

“I was just wondering.” The colours go together perfectly. Kageyama has a hard time keeping his own expression still. 

“I’m surprised you noticed this. I have, in fact. I told you I’m going to that café fairly often since it’s close to my apartment and since the art school is right around the corner too, there have been students asking me whether they could draw me.” He laughs, satisfaction in his voice. “It’s odd, considering I used to be on the other side of a canvas before.”

Kageyama draws back, leaning against the backrest to see Sugawara better, brush scratching over red paint. “...You used to be an artist, too?”

“In your eyes, probably not. I was mediocre at best. But I loved it.”

Kageyama stares at his picture, paint still fresh and wet, and lowers his head to see his hands covered in it likewise. “I’ve never seen you draw before.”

He doesn’t look up to see Sugawara’s face but he thinks he can imagine what it looks like. He doesn’t hear his voice but he can imagine what it sounds like, what he wants to say. All the things that went through his mind shortly before he met Sugawara. The things he never voiced, never showed, not even to himself. 

But the canvas knew, and it stayed blank. Even now, the canvas knows better than Kageyama does, what he feels and what he thinks. What he wants to say but can’t. 

Eventually, he will show Sugawara what he has no words for. 

\--- 

“I’m glad it went well but you really didn’t have to treat me to dinner, Kageyama. Although,” Sugawara says, looking around with eyes glistening, “I’ve always dreamt of going to this place once. ...It’s far too expensive for me though.”

“It’s the least I could do,” Kageyama retorts, glad he hasn’t tripped over his words this time. Every single time he opened his mouth in the past 15 minutes, he couldn’t manage a single sentence without minding that he has a tongue and that it needs to move in a very specific way in order to bring out very specific syllables needed for very specific words like Good evening and How are you doing. He isn’t prone to being nervous - not usually. Somehow, Sugawara changes everything about him. 

“I sat there. I didn’t do anything to justify spending so much money on me but I won’t say no to good food. Thanks, Kageyama.”

He smiles and Kageyama is completely unable to function despite having seen this before so many times - except this time Suga is wearing a suit that suits his figure perfectly and his hair is tidily tucked beneath his ear with every kind of process in Kageyama’s brain being stopped by that. 

He isn’t entirely sure when he had gotten so conscious of this feeling accompanying him ever since he met Sugawara. Genuine curiosity, attraction, a magnetism of some sort Kageyama had no word for because he had never been good with those. But looking at his drawings, at his paintings, he realized slowly but surely that it was nothing he could ever find a word for - because there is none. 

Kageyama isn’t quite sure he could even properly encompass this feeling with paint and brush. When he looks at Sugawara, meeting his eyes, seeing his smile lighting up his entire face, he knows he won’t be able to. Never. It’s frustrating, in a way. 

“It seems like it will take a bit until we’ll get our food…” Sugawara says but he doesn’t seem impatient. He’s looking around, leaning forward as if he is about to leak a secret. So Kageyama goes along. They are awfully close, he realizes belatedly. “I… meant to give you something.”

“To me?”

Sugawara nods and draws back, rustling through the bag to their feet. He pulls out something in black wrapping and hands it to Kageyama. “Here. I know you’ve seen and done far better than this but I felt like I had to give this to you.” He covers his face in his hands, smile sheepish behind his palm. “I’m actually sort of embarrassed now.”

Kageyama carefully takes off the wrapping and finds a sketchbook beneath it. He opens it and it takes him quite a while to process, even when flipping through the pages. His heart is racing and yet he feels oddly calm. Warm. ...Hot, in fact, when he smoothes over the pages. 

“This is… me…”

Sugawara averts his eyes and lets out a strange sound bordering to frustration though it’s probably mostly embarrassment. He did this every now and then and called it whale noises. Kageyama wouldn’t know, he never heard actual whales. “Y-You said before you’ve never seen me draw but that’s because I don’t do it in public. I do draw a lot at home but… lately I’ve been kind of stuck. And then I met you and I felt like I could give it a try again because I got pissed at how you implied I hadn’t been trying hard enough in the past. After a while, I flipped through my sketchbook and I realized it was just full of… you.”

Kageyama looks up but Sugawara’s face is nowhere to be seen behind his hands, only a pair of red ears showing and unintelligible mumbling coming from his direction. 

His art is a lot cleaner than his own, not quite as daring. He called it mediocre but Kageyama can’t see any of that. It’s different, no question but it shows Sugawara quite well as he is. Refreshing and contradictory, pleasant to the eyes but not exactly conventional either. It’s odd to see himself drawn like this. 

“I can’t stop thinking of you,” he says, quicker than his mind could stop him but he doesn’t mind. It feels good saying it out aloud even if it’s not even half of the proper description for this feeling. 

There is an expression on Sugawara’s face Kageyama can’t remember seeing before, cheeks tinted red, eyes wide open, mouth agape. He’d like to draw it. He will. And he’ll show it to Sugawara hoping to see it again.

**Author's Note:**

> suga cried a legit tear at seeing kageyama's sketchbook but he hid it really well and left kageyama completely confused whether he did something wrong. it ended in suga having to smooch kageyama for him to stop apologizing for nothing. ah yes. youth.


End file.
